Category: Science

This is a guest post from Steve Bellovin, a professor in the Computer Science department and affiliate faculty at the law school at Columbia University. His research focuses on networks, security, and public policy. His opinions don’t necessarily reflect the views of Ars Technica. (credit: EUGENE TANNER/AFP/Getty Images) By now, most people have heard about the erroneous incoming ICBM alert in Hawaii. There’s been scrutiny of the how the emergency alert system works and of how international tensions and the flight times of missiles can lead to accidental nuclear war. I’d like to focus instead on how the systems design in Hawaii led to this problem—a design that I suspect… Read More

Google CEO Sundar Pichai said the company wants to be a constructive voice in the immigration debate. The immigration issue hits very close to home for Silicon Valley tech companies, and Pichais’ comments signal that the industry is rethinking its tactics to fight for the cause. Almost exactly one year ago, Google CEO Sundar Pichai stood in front of cheering employees vowing to “stand together” and “never compromise” in opposing the Trump administration’s travel ban. On Friday, Pichai spoke out again in defense of immigration and of the benefits that immigrants bring to the US. But the India-born CEO, himself the perfect embodiment of the cause, seemed to have ditched… Read More

Google CEO Sundar Pichai said the company wants to be a constructive voice in the immigration debate. The immigration issue hits very close to home for Silicon Valley tech companies, and Pichais’ comments signal that the industry is rethinking its tactics to fight for the cause. Almost exactly one year ago, Google CEO Sundar Pichai stood in front of cheering employees vowing to “stand together” and “never compromise” in opposing the Trump administration’s travel ban. On Friday, Pichai spoke out again in defense of immigration and of the benefits that immigrants bring to the US. But the India-born CEO, himself the perfect embodiment of the cause, seemed to have ditched… Read More

In their new book “The Future Computed,” Microsoft president Brad Smith and EVP of AI and research Harry Shum discuss the future of artificial intelligence. They argue that one of “the most important conclusions” they drew was the need for more liberal arts majors in tech. As consumer-ready AI reaches human parity, they say, lessons from disciplines like psychology will be increasingly important. In 2011, Microsoft cofounder Bill Gates told a panel of American governors that a liberal arts education would hold back college graduates in the modern economy. A few days later, late Apple cofounder Steve Jobs declared that “it’s technology married with liberal arts, married with the humanities,… Read More

“The consensus is that because blockchain is so niche and it’s mostly early adopters who come from tech and finance, that it’s actually less diverse than those industries that are already struggling to be representative of the population at large,” Raine Revere, co-founder of blockchain education startup Maiden, told me on an episode of the CTRL+T podcast. In… Read More …read more Source:: TechCrunch